Where Is Alabaster Cove?

Somewhere between the coastal mountains and the Pacific Ocean in northern California there is a mythical town called Alabaster Cove. At least, I think that’s where to begin looking for it. You see, on top of everything else I have problems with, reality being one of them, there are random people I know who like making up stuff. In other words, my world is largely populated with writers.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a writer – unless you ask someone who actually lives with one. I’m sure my ex has a pretty long list of things she never really liked about living with me. Anyway, one of the writers I know fairly well conjured Alabaster Cove into existence. I’m not sure where it came from. Maybe it was an inspiration caught between imagination and a dream. You know the place, somewhere under the rainbow – or should that be over? Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that the place actually does exist even if only in Deek Rhew’s mind.

Deek is part of a dynamic duo of fiction writing. Erin Rhew, his wife, is an accomplished sci-fi/fantasy writer. Deek does mystery/detective stuff. Together they constitute what Kurt Vonnegut Jr. referred to as a Nation of Two. They were born to be together. All they had to do was find one another and suddenly their lives made sense. And everyone else who knows them cannot think of one without the other. They are that inseparable. That, by the way, trumps what I was saying about living with writers. When both people in a relationship write for a living the result can be magical. Not sure if they plan to collaborate on anything – a sci-fi who dun it? Well, I’d buy it. For the present she proof reads his stuff and vice versa. Each is the other’s biggest fan.

They live somewhere about in Oregon. It rains there a lot. Since I know a lot of prolific writers who live in the Pacific Northwest, maybe the weather has a bit to do with why they write so much. Maybe I should live there instead of sunny (mostly, anyway) Florida. It would be an experience waking up in a world where I would be surrounded with writers, each of us trying to one up the other with a quick turn of a phrase. Come to think of it, maybe that wouldn’t be such a good thing after all.

Deek’s latest effort is a novella titled Birth of an American Gigolo. Disclaimer: it’s not an autobiography. The novella is set in the aforementioned Alabaster Cove. It is also a place mentioned in Deek’s upcoming novel, 122 Rules. So, if you aim to become totally immersed in the fantasy of Deek’s fiction, and want to get to know the people who populate the mythical town of Alabaster Cove, Birth of an American Gigolo is the jumping off point. Please make sure your life vest is fastened securely before doing so. Deek is pretty good at telling stories that drag you inside and hold you captive for however long it takes you to read them.